A few weeks ago, my daughter and I saw Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden. A woman sitting next to us told her that I was a cool dad and this was special. The daughter didn’t quite get it but I think she will one day. Like most if not all soon to be teenagers, she was either pretending to be or actually was too cool to care. She does slip up at times and drops her guard, those are rare, precious moments. She did come alive during Once, the highly age inappropriate song that I’ve sung to her since she was 2 and Alive. She had enough intuition to stand up, sing along with me and the tens of thousands of those in attendance. I hope she will remember that one when I’m fertilizing the dandelions.

In any case, I once remarked to a church friend that some concerts reflected a worship service so much better than the ones at church and maybe this is what heaven could look like. The response I received was one of those cut and paste ones.

I’ve written about this previously but quite a bit of Christian songs aren’t all that well composed. There is a bit of an unwritten formula to follow and some are even theologically incorrect. But the point here is that often heaven is depicted as a place wheee we hover around the throne of God singing songs for eternity. Please no. Not with some of the mediocre ones out there. Also, an eternity doing the same thing cannot be terribly fun or exciting in any way.

Heaven is one of those concepts where it’s a caricature. When I was growing up, it is often described as a place where the streets are paved with gold. But who needs gold in heaven?

It’s also described as a place without sorrow or pain, and maybe that’s all good but it has to be more than the absence of things, but also the presence of the desirable.

I used to call NYC introvert hell because there was seemingly non-stop movement and noise. In fact, I would joke that my church made hell sound inviting- a cool dark place without anyone around. I kid.

But heaven – apparently Steve Jobs, no saint and a bit of a lapsed believer exclaimed in his last moments – Oh wow! And unless he was a sadist looking forward to eternal punishment, that’s a telling sign.

So I don’t know. We probably have previews in the earthly realm. I won’t go into all that but it’s all around if you know what you’re looking at and for.